I’m personally doubtful that GIFs need more help in taking over the internet, but then again, I don’t have Mark Zuckerberg’s vision (or even two lowly commas).
Facebook appears to be testing a new built-in way to search GIFs and stickers in Messenger, with the feature available to select users in Canada and Australia. Although you’ve been able to install a third-party app to send GIFs for a few months now, this new update would allow even the least tech-savvy tween to troll Giphy for annoying images — you just have to tap a magnifying glass in the text bar, and you get images which, with one simple touch, can get you instantly unfriended.
It does work fairly well — Giphy is still Giphy, even when pretending to be Facebook — but whether it should work well is a whole separate thing. The Zuckerbeast has a habit of testing features on a small number of users in one region (because who cares if you annoy Australians), in order to test something before rolling it out worldwide. In other words: there’s a hope that your messages might not get infected with GIFs in the near future. We can only live in hope.
[Mashable]